Required reading

Configuration

netctl uses profiles to manage network connections, profile files are stored in /etc/netctl/. Example configuration files are provided for the user to assist them in configuring their network connection. These example profiles are located in /etc/netctl/examples/. The common configurations include:

ethernet-dhcp

ethernet-static

wireless-wpa

wireless-wpa-static

To use an example profile, simply copy one of them from /etc/netctl/examples/ to /etc/netctl/ and configure it to your needs:

# cp /etc/netctl/examples/wireless-wpa /etc/netctl/profile

Tip: For wireless settings, you can use wifi-menu -o to generate the profile file in /etc/netctl/.

Once you have created your profile, make an attempt to establish a connection using the newly created profile by running:

# netctl start profile

Note: profile is the file name, not including the full path. Providing the full path will make netctl exit with an error code.

If issuing the above command results in a failure, then use journalctl -xn and netctl status profile in order to obtain a more in depth explanation of the failure. Make the needed corrections to the failed configuration and retest.

Automatic operation

If you use only one profile (per interface) or want to switch profiles manually, the Basic method will do. Most common examples are servers, workstations, routers etc.

Basic method

With this method, you can statically start only one profile per interface. First manually check that the profile can be started successfully, then it can be enabled using

# netctl enable profile

This will create and enable a systemd service that will start when the computer boots.

Note: The connection is only established if the profile can be started succesfully at boot time (or when the service starts). That specifically means, in case of wired connection the cable must be plugged-in, in case of wireless connection the network must be in range.

Tip: To enable static IP profile on wired interface no matter if the cable is connected or not, use SkipNoCarrier=yes in your profile.

Automatic switching of profiles

netctl provides two special systemd services for automatic switching of profiles: netctl-auto@interface.service for wireless interfaces, and netctl-ifplugd@interface.service for wired interfaces. Using netctl-auto@interface.service, netctl profiles change as you move from range of one network into range of other network. Using netctl-ifplugd@interface.service, netctl profiles change as you plug the cable in and out.

Note: netcfg used net-auto-wireless.service and net-auto-wired.service for this purpose.

Now configure all profiles that netctl-auto@interface.service or netctl-ifplugd@interface.service can start. If you want some wireless profile not to be started automatically by netctl-auto@interface.service, you have to explicitly add ExcludeAuto=yes to that profile. You can use Priority= to set priority of some profile when multiple profiles are available. netctl-ifplugd@interface.service will prefer profiles, which use DHCP. To prefer a profile with a static IP, you can use AutoWired=yes. See netctl.profile(5) for details.

Warning: Automatic selection of a WPA-enabled profile by netctl-auto is not possible with option Security=wpa-config, please use Security=wpa-configsection instead.

Once your profiles are set and verified to be working, simply enable these services using systemctl:

For static IP configuration make sure the Address variables have a netmask after the IP (e.g. Address=('192.168.1.23/24' '192.168.1.87/24') in the example profile).

If you setup a wireless profile according in the wireless-wpa-configsection example, note that this overrides wpa_supplicant options defined above the brackets. For a connection to a hidden wireless network, add scan_ssid=1 to the options in the wireless-wpa-configsection; Hidden=yes does not work there.

Unlike netcfg, by default netctl fails to bring up a NIC when it is not connected to another powered up NIC. To solve this problem, add SkipNoCarrier=yes at the end of your /etc/netctl/profile.

Passphrase obfuscation (256-bit PSK)

Note: Although "encrypted", the key that you put in the profile configuration is enough to connect to a WPA-PSK network. Therefore this process is only useful for hiding the human-readable version of the passphrase. This will not prevent anyone with read access to this file from connecting to the network. You should ask yourself if there is any use in this at all, since using the same passphrase for anything else is a very poor security measure.

Users not wishing to have the passphrase to their wireless network stored in plain text have the option of storing the corresponding 256-bit pre-shared key (PSK) instead, which is calculated from the passphrase and the SSID using standard algorithms.

Bonding

The Linux bonding driver provides a method for aggregating multiple network interfaces into a single logical "bonded" interface. The behavior of the bonded interfaces depends on the mode. Generally speaking, modes provide either hot standby or load balancing services. Additionally, link integrity monitoring may be performed.

Load balancing

To use bonding with netctl, additional package from official repositories is required: ifenslave.

Copy /etc/netctl/examples/bonding to /etc/netctl/bonding and edit it, for example:

Now you can disable your old configuration and set bonding to be started automatically. Switch to the new profile, for example:

# netctl switch-to bonding

Note: This uses the round-robin policy, which is the default for the bonding driver. See official documentation for details.

Tip: To check the status and bonding mode:

$ cat /proc/net/bonding/bond0

Wired to wireless failover

This example describes how to use bonding to fallback to wireless when the wired ethernet goes down. The presence of network connection on each interface is detected and dhcpcd is started when connection on either or both interfaces is established.

Configure wpa_supplicant to associate with known networks. This can be done with a netctl profile (remember to use IP='no') and a wpa_supplicant service running constantly, or on-demand with wpa_cli. Ways to do this are covered on the wpa_supplicant page.

Create an ifplugd action for automatic DHCP assignment on the bonded interface:

If you have a wired and wireless connection to the same network, you can probably now disconnect and reconnect the wired connection without losing connectivity. In most cases, even streaming music won't skip!